AI: taking the fun out of everything?

It’s everywhere! Everyone is talking about AI and how it’s coming to take away our jobs and flip the world 180º.

My general views on the topic can be viewed here, but the summary is:

• We need to think of AI as an enabler or enhancer of us as humans
• We need to accept it and evolve rather than fighting against it

Going back to the topic about jobs that AI may take over in the coming years. I’m kind of on the fence on this one.

On one hand I believe that we could and should automate menial tasks to machines to free us up to live life. The problem is the amount of people that would lose their jobs and income streams. Maybe not an issue if we had universal income or some similar form of guaranteeing that everyone was protected whether they had a job or not. A huge can of worms that I sadly don’t see being solved anytime soon.

But, assuming that we do figure it all out and accept that AI can and should take over many existing jobs, there is one factor we’re not talking enough about and that’s how AI seems to be taking away all the things that might make life worth living.

What? But AI IS fun

I’ll admit that playing around with AI is tons of fun and I always have a blast with what comes out from a text we write or image we upload.

AI is fun and useful all rolled into one, but sadly it’s taking over the fun tasks in life rather than the mundane ones.

I didn’t come up with this notion, but sadly I can’t give the original poster credit because I can’t remember who it was.

Isn’t one of the greatest parts of being human the potential to be creative? Picking up a pencil to doodle, painting a canvas, sculpting clay or writing prose. These are the things that give us joy, even when we’re bad at it.

Creative work isn’t always about the end result, but often about the processes for those being creative.

I know it’s complicated to be good as a creative person and even harder to sell it for money, but the mix of wanting to be creative and making a living out of it forced us to make it about the end product.

If we were able to do it for fun and had the time to do it, because of machines, might it not be fun to just do it?

Sadly, AI has already started exploring those areas and they’re doing a much better job than 90% of us humans. They can create incredible artwork, print amazing sculptures, write incredible stories.

What does that leave us with?

Maybe I’m just looking at this from my creative background aspect and may be alone in this, but I kind of feel AI is taking away the things that make being human fun, rather than the things that make being human a pain in the neck.

Another aspect of looking at it is about learning and evolving as humans. If we have machines doing all the learning and evolving, do we stop thinking? Do we stop evolving?

I would love to know what others think.

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Originally published at https://hugofroes.substack.com.